[NTLUG:Discuss] What's happened to Linux Magazine?

[Steve]

Mark Bickel wrote:

> I realize that some people may see their decision to run the ad as a betrayal
> of "the cause", but I view that reaction as being more than a bit absurd.
> The reality is that due to the current economic downturn, advertising revenue
> in tech pubs is way down from what it has been. This unfortunate financial 
> reality threatens the continued existance of many fine tech publications. 


In a lot of ways, I agree. You do what you have to do to survive. People 
have jobs, the people working there probably believe in Linux, and so 
on. Being totally "pure" (whatever that means) takes a back seat to the 
real world. However, in the real world, it's your end customers who 
count. If not enough of them are happy, you have no business anyway.

Although it's true that Microsoft ads in a Linux magazine probably have 
no real benefit to Microsoft and they do help pay for the magazine, 
there is still a certain bit of irritation at seeing this kind of thing 
on the reader side.

I doubt that if half of the ads in the magazine were Microsoft-based 
that many readers would just snicker about how stupid Microsoft was and 
thank them for the subsidy. They'd probably be rather annoyed. Magazine 
ads as a whole have grown to indirectly or directly serve a number of 
non-financial, reader-oriented purposes (entertainment, learn about my 
stuff that's relevant to you, what's the market doing, new info, etc.) 
that sort of serves as a weaker form of content.

I think the problem was that Microsoft ads don't provide any of these 
functions for the reader. This wouldn't be any different than seeing 
numerous ads for PCs in a Mac magazine or seeing a lot of advertisements 
for beef in a cooking magazine for vegetarians.

What normally happens is that readers process their ads really fast, 
stopping by the ones that are of interest. They then find your content 
and life is good. If your readers' first impression will be "This 
shouldn't be here; why is this here?" on a process that was before 
pretty automatic, that's probably bad for the mag.

As inane as advertisements can be, they can overall serve a purpose to 
the reader. If the vast majority of your readership find the 
advertisement to be totally devoid of value, distracting, or even worse, 
offensive, then it shouldn't be in there. Perhaps LW's marketing dept. 
wasn't doing itjob, or maybe it was and LW's beancounters gave a thumbs 
down, or maybe the editors tried to get too cute.

Steve